Northamptonshire ambulance hospital admission times are in top five highest in the country
Patients are waiting over half an hour to be transferred to emergency departments
More than 70 percent of people arriving to Northamptonshire's hospitals by ambulance are waiting over half an hour.
The figures for the week up to December 1st are higher nationally than this time last year.
Kettering and Northampton General Hospitals were in the top five in the country for waiting times last week.
More than 74 percent of patients at Kettering General and over 70 percent at Northampton General Hospital waited more than half an hour.
More than a third of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England last week waited more than 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E,
It comes as it was revealed the number of people in hospital with flu -- is four times higher this year than last.
A spokesman for the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire -which runs both hospitals – said: “Both of UHN hospitals’ emergency departments are extremely busy with significant numbers of patients needing urgent care and associated pressure on the hospital’s bed base.
“Ambulance waiting times to handover patients are impacted by this because patient flow through the department and into the hospital itself is slowed down.
“While we have done work to improve handovers - such as opening additional community beds for patients - it can remain a challenge during peak periods such as winter.
“The public can support our emergency care departments by using NHS 111 to help guide their appropriate use of health services and not attending the departments unless it is a real emergency.”